This is the first English language account of the 1809 campaign for
Vienna to weave stories of individual persons into the larger motif
of the struggle to dominate Europe. The book explores three themes:
the decline of Napoleon's powers, the rise of German nationalism,
the end of the era of cavalry dominance of the battlefield and the
ascendance of artillery. The campaign for Vienna led to Napoleon's
first defeat on the battlefield. In May, Napoleon sat with his
defeated army at the end of a long and imperiled line of
communications. At the moment of crisis, he displayed his
formidable talents and prepared a masterful counterstroke. The
Battle of Wagram—a battle of unprecedented lethality—was a
triumph for Napoleon and led to a peace which he dictated. In 1809
the world's undisputed military genius—Napoleon
Bonaparte—confronted his implacable continental foe, the Hapsburg
Empire. During the Vienna campaign of that year, Napoleon suffered
his first defeat since becoming Emperor, but rebounded to win
Wagram, a battle of unprecedented lethality. Referring to the
strategic importance of the battles he fought, Napoleon reflected:
My power is dependent on my glory, and my glory on my victories. My
power would fall if I did not base it on still more glory and still
more victories. Conquest made me what I am; conquest alone can keep
me there. Even in the midst of a life and death campaign struggle
against Austria, Napoleon continued to make nearly every decision
of state on a daily basis. During his bath, while being shaved,
when eating his meals, aides presented petitions and requests for
his tireless attention: a second lieutenant asks to retain his
French citizenship while serving in the Dutch army? Granted.
Emperor Alexander I of Russia asks that an English prisoner of war
who is a relative of his personal surgeon be released? Granted. If
genius lies in the attention to detail, here was genius at work.
The sun rose on April 24, 1809, to illuminate a continent at war.
From Poland to Spain, some 600,000 soldiers awakened to duty.
Nowhere was the concentration of forces greater than in the Danube
Valley where Napoleon had determined to launch his blow against the
Austrian Generalissimus, Erzherzog (Archduke) Karl. If Karl
triumphed, most of Europe stood poised to pounce. Napoleon and the
French Empire would be attacked from all quarters. If Karl failed,
all Europe—except England and perhaps Portugal and Spain—would
make whatever accommodations were necessary to survive under
Napoleonic hegemony. The ensuing campaign led to Napoleon's first
defeat at Aspern-Essling. So, at the end of May, Napoleon sat with
his battered army at the end of a long and imperiled line of
communications while Europe erupted around him. Yet, at the moment
of supreme crisis, Napoleon displayed his formidable talents and
prepared a masterful counterstroke. French and Austrian alike
suffered horrific losses at Wagram, but at battle's end, Napoleon's
commanding presence produced a French triumph. It was a victory so
complete that the Emperor forced Austria into unwilling alliance
and even took the daughter of the Austrian Kaiser to be his new
wife. For one last time, the French conqueror redrew Europe's map.
General
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